UPDATE: Well, knee #2 has packed it in now. Both look like balloons and I can barely walk. Went back up to the hospital because it takes days to get into our local GP but they still grumbled that it should have been a GP consult. Yeah, well, I'm sorry but I can't walk and I have 2 kids 5 and under to look after and a husband that works 7 days a week. So sue me!

Anyway, they finally got their asses into gear and did an xray and some blood tests. Now they're thinking that I may have Ross River Virus or some other similar mosquito borne bug. It's all just co-incidental that my knees happened to flare up after slipping down the stairs. AND to top things off I've gotten a 'stress' rash which I seem to get when I get megga stressed or really sick.  I feel depressed but thats possibly because I've had a scotch on top of my meds *tsk tsk I know*. I'm well and truly over it now. There was a 70 yo man who had terminal cancer up there with a possible dislocated shoulder so I need to tell myself that things really could be much worse. Still I guess I'm allowed to feel sorry for myself every now and then



Yesterday I slipped down the front stairs. I managed to catch myself before hitting anything thank goodness and then went on to walk my daughter to the bus stop. Nothing hurt so I thought I was doing pretty well. I went on to do the usual daily chores and then around 3pm in the afternoon my knee started to feel a bit stiff. By 7:30pm I couldn't walk and my knee looked like a balloon.

Hubby, who'd been in New Zealand for work for the past 4 days was arriving home at about 9:00pm so I had to use a kitchen chair to walk around and get the kids ready for bed. I decided to phone the hospital and they recommended that I come up. Just in case the swelling got so bad as to compromise my circulation. So up we trundled, me, hubby and the kids Hung around for what seemed an eternity, as the Dr had just ducked out to get himself some dinner.

He finally came back and decided that he couldn't really do much as there was too much swelling so they bandaged me up, gave me some crutches and drugs and said come back in a few days time.  Talk about an anti-climax

Anyway, I'm resting today and am supposed to be keeping my leg up and I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.  I can't believe how something like this can really screw up the household. It took me an hour to make up two school lunches this morning and DH has had to run the kids around. At least I have an excuse to be sitting on my butt doing nothing

And yes, the stockist in me has already taken photos of the crutches I'll get around to loading them up to my stock account some day Anyway, that's my little update



So, lately I've been considering doing a course in Graphic Design as I've noticed that many of the cover artists I talk to/watch hold a degree in this field. I feel like a bit of a 'wanna-be' when it comes to my cover art as I left school at the end of Year 10 and only ever did a Secretarial certificate. Of course I've been employed ever since, well, up to the point of us buying our own business But I can't say the hardware business is something that I'd ever aspired to. Still, anything I know about art/cover art/photoshop, I've pretty much taught myself.

Anyway,  I've been looking to see if I can do GD as a mature age student or via correspondence as the local TAFE doesn't have the course on campus. It would be nice to finally have a qualification other than Secretary

So I was wanting to ask if anyone watching me has done a Graphic Design course. If so, how did you find it. Has it helped your career? Or thinking back do you think you would have learned it all anyway? Is it advisable to be 'in class' for such a course? Or is it possible to complete it successfully via correspondence? Did you pick up any part time jobs  that helped/aided your studies? What programmes did you use in the course?

The course I was considering uses Adobe InDesign CS3. How does this differ from Photoshop?

Well, I guess I should quit with the questions for the time being. I'd really appreciate any suggestions/tips from anyone out there